[Preface] [Orville's Worlds] [Family] [Young Orville ] [To New York] [To London, and back] [The Second Marriage, 1913 – 1917] [The Third Marriage, Rehabilitation] [The Met Years, Two careers 1920-1924] [Photogallery]

 

The Second Marriage, 1913 – 1917

Orville Harrold appeared secure as an operatic tenor at the opening of 1913. Despite some near-term uncertainty during construction of the new Lexington Opera House, he had been regularly employed by Hammerstein for two years, who always paid his artists for services rendered (any wage disputes arising from his closings involved future contract obligations) and who would have paid his star London tenor very well. One report of their five year contract arising from the opera franchise scheme stated that Hammerstein was to pay Orville $700 nightly, for forty nights per season¹, which in today’s values would approach a million dollars annually.

Hammerstein engagements kept Orville busy for the new year, while Orville soon managed several projects of his own. The Firefly, with Emma Trentini, had moved to the Casino Theatre, where Orville was seated in a stage box one evening in early January, 1913. When prima donna Trentini invited him to entertain the audience after one of her curtain calls, he sang “I’m Falling in Love with Some One”, from Naughty Marietta, which had brought public notice to his high tenor voice², first from the box without rising from his seat, and a second time joining her onstage. He then returned his box seat, where his companion was former London Opera soprano, Lydia Locke³.

By February, Orville was touring through Kansas in a concert series arranged by Harry Paris. They presented their standard show, in which Orville introduced Canio in costume, and the practiced piano accompaniment of Agnes Monroe had come to intertwine as a duet with Orville’s voice. He could talk to the audience of his early days in Kansas, and was generally well received as a returning native. They passed through Lawrence, Topeka, Hutchinson, and Wichita in early February, and on to Kansas City on the eleventh⁴, where Orville sang to a nearly empty house. One reviewer lamented that citizens had missed an excellent event, as Orville soldiered on with expression and energy for the few who came⁵. Kansas City unfortunately perceived Orville to have snubbed them the previous fall when he boycotted their Felice Lyne homecoming, for which they reciprocated in kind, the sympathetic reviewer patiently explaining that the singer had merely honored his manager and their contract.

Orville’s son, Paul, described an event that likely occurred on this tour, or one of the other 1913 Harry Paris tours, when Paul was about ten years old. Orville had written that his train would be arriving in Muncie, so Paul was there to greet him. When all was ready for departure, Orville spontaneously carried Paul onto the train and they continued on to St. Louis, wiring Effie along the way that all was fine^5.5. Paul received new clothes in St. Louis, and continued on to Kansas City, attending concerts and having a wonderful time. He said that Orville tried to have the children with him whenever possible, and Paul recalled enjoying times with his father in Chicago, New York, California, and at Orville’s later home in Connecticut.

Harry Paris had Orville back in Indianapolis on the eve before Valentine’s Day, for a grand event at English’s Opera House⁶. In addition to a large audience was Orville’s friend and mentor, Alexander Ernestinoff, in a prime box over the stage. Before Pagliacci, Orville gave a brief speech describing his joy for the event, at which his mother heard him sing for the first time in many years, and for the first time in public, and expressed gratitude to Ernestinoff, who had led him to first sing with an orchestra in Indianapolis.

Orville was in Muncie the following Monday, performing in his own tragic opera. Effie and Orville Harrold appeared in divorce court on February 17, 1913, newspaper reports describing their circumstances all too vividly⁷:

Effie Harrold, wife of Orville Harrold, the tenor, obtained a decree of divorce from her husband this afternoon in the Delaware Superior Court on the ground of cruelty. Mrs. Harrold told the court that her husband on several occasions said he wanted nothing more to do with her. She produced letters in which he said he did not love her.

Mrs. Harrold testified that she and her husband were happy before he became famous as a singer. Since that time he had been in New York, Paris, and London, while she had remained here caring for their three children. She complained that his success had killed all his love for her. Mr. Harrold was in court with his attorney and admitted that he did not love his wife. Their stations in life, he said, had become widely separated.

By the decree Mr. Harrold receives the custody of their oldest child, Adelene, 13…..The singer was ordered to pay $25 a month each for support of the two younger children.

With the efficiency of modern rail service, Orville appeared three days later in New York City Hall, to be married⁸,

HARROLD WEDS AGAIN – Tenor, Divorced Last Monday, Marries Lydia Talbot at City Hall – Orville Harrold, the operatic tenor, and Lydia Talbot, who gave her profession as a singer, obtained a marriage license yesterday afternoon at City Hall and were married shortly afterward by Alderman James Smith in the building……Harrold gave his age as 35 and his residence as 262 West Forty-sixth Street. His bride, who said she was a widow, gave her age as 25 and her address as 204 West 108^th Street….

Orville’s separation from Effie, after six years away, becomes clear. Lydia Locke Talbot, statuesque soprano from Hammerstein’s London Opera, was relatively unknown in New York. While the New York Times wedding announcement introduced Orville by a single name as “the operatic tenor”, Lydia was somebody who “gave her profession as a singer.” She had not been connected with Hammerstein’s old Manhattan Opera, but Musical America stated that she and Orville had met while both were pupils of Oscar Saenger⁹, which could place the meeting in New York during 1910 or 1911, when Orville was still unknown. She thus would have been aware of Hammerstein’s London plans, and may have ventured independently to London, where Orville became the season’s reigning tenor, and an excellent catch for a rising soprano. Reginald Talbot was again mentioned as Lydia’s previous husband, while Orville announced that they would take an apartment on Riverside Drive, and would travel to Florence, Italy after completing his spring commitments to Hammerstein^9.5.

In London, Lydia would have had to earn her place on her own merits, which were sufficient to garner a number of roles: Hedwige in William Tell, Countess of Ceprano in Rigolleto, Alisa in Lucia, Inez in La Favourita, Gertrude in Romeo and Juliet, Martha in Faust, and Giuletta in Tales of Hoffman. Along with Orville, Felice Lyne, and others, she had London portraits taken by Dover St. Studio in Mayfair (the common photo of Orville as Faust is from Dover St. Studio.) Lydia went to New York in mid-1912, at about the time that Orville left London. After attending a Halloween party with a theatrical agent, she was involved in a New York auto accident that injured eleven people, and kept her inactive for a period with a broken limb¹⁰. (Orville appears to have been touring for Hammerstein at this time.) Arrayed in considerable jewelry, she reportedly identified herself at Bellevue Hospital as Mrs. Lydia Harrold¹¹, and remained in the hospital for several weeks. Their wedding announcement in the New York Herald, headlined “Orville Harrold, Four Days Divorced, Weds Singer After Opera Romance”, indicated that Orville had been her singing coach for two years¹², and everything suggests that Orville and Lydia had been building up to a wedding for much of the previous year.

Patti Harrold had probably reached the same conclusion upon arriving in New York the previous fall. Patti had been reared for much of her life by Effie alone, who continued to care deeply for Orville. For the adolescent daughter, Lydia was likely the woman who had divided her family, while Lydia’s auto accident perhaps placed Orville in a protective stance toward her, exacerbating an awkward situation. It also turns out that Lydia may have been neither maternal nor receptive to competition. The new family likely had a difficult start, whatever the circumstances, and Patti forever held a vitriolic view of Lydia while remaining quite in love with her father and New York theatre.

The divorce grew excruciatingly public and controversial, becoming syndicated news as a classic marital travesty of a husband abandoning his wife and family. A full page spread in the Salt Lake Sunday Tribune was headlined, How He “Outgrew” His Wife. While the article offered no editorial comment¹³, Effie eloquently and simply described her distress and sorrow, as Orville clumsily declared that, “A man must fulfill his destiny” and concluded that, “I had to go on and she would not – that is all there is to it.” This perhaps caused few ripples in New York City, but left lasting negative impressions elsewhere.

The Hutchinson (Kansas) News, where Orville was a virtual native son, declared (tongue in cheek), “SUCCESS FOR HARROLD – Caruso Has Nothing on the Kansas Singer Now.” While Orville had already been called an “American Caruso”, they were not referring to opera. Caruso had appeared before a New York court in 1906 on charges of pinching an unsuspecting lady in a crowd at the zoo. Orville had now surpassed Caruso by joining the “alimony class.” Dwelling on Effie’s tearful testimony of how fame had crushed their love¹⁴, the article was relentlessly sarcastic of Orville’s “growth” from loving grocery clerk to callous opera star. But, the couple agreed that their relationship was beyond reconciliation. It was perhaps inevitable that the forces were just too great, given the two people, their circumstances, and their differences. All that was left was to live on.

While live on they did, it can be said that Orville paid far less child support than was commensurate with his earning power since entering Mr. Hammerstein’s employ in 1910. At $25 each for two children, Orville’s support payments were slightly above the $10 per week he had earned in Muncie, in that sense constituting a full average income level for the family. Effie’s and the children continued for a time in their Muncie duplex, with income solely from Orville and piano lessons, and then moved into the house of Effie’s sister, Emma Kiger, who was a single schoolteacher. Having stayed with Orville through the lean Bohemian years, the family remained in modest circumstances while Orville’s income elevated into the substantial level of successful New York entertainers.

As divorce scandal swirled on, Orville was back touring through the spring of 1913, without his new wife. In mid-April he shared a double bill of classical music, the last in a series of Artist’s Concerts, in Portland, Oregon with noted Swiss pianist and conductor, Rudolph Ganz¹⁵ (who claimed direct decent from Charlemagne). This was part of a continuing tour, such that Orville reached Indianapolis from the west on May 31, for a large Wagner choral festival led by Alexander Ernestinoff. Lydia arrived from New York the same day, and the festival began the following afternoon. A very large combined chorus, derived from a variety of the region’s German choruses, presented several concerts¹⁶. Soloists were Marie Rappold and Henri Scott, both of the Met, and Orville Harrold, singing individually and with the chorus.

The Indianapolis event concluded Orville’s spring obligations to Hammerstein, leaving the newlyweds to plan their summer. They considered a summerhouse at Bradley Beach, New Jersey¹⁷, but it appears that they opted for a honeymoon in Florence, Italy to study opera, as indicated at the time of their wedding. According to an un-attributed article in Effie Kiger’s scrapbook, Orville studied intently in Italy on improving his French, German, and Italian, in addition to learning new operatic librettos¹⁸. It also appears that they managed several concerts and opera engagements while there¹⁹.

It is uncertain where Patti was during this. She could have summered in Muncie. Orville had formal custody of her, so that she might have remained in New York, relatively alone, or joined in an Italian vacation. Wherever she was at the time, Patti mentioned to her niece years later (ca. 1960) that Lydia had shot across a room at Orville²⁰ while the couple was in Italy (apparently on their honeymoon)! Although this is hardly objective proof of the event, such an assertion is credible. It is difficult to guess how much Orville ever really knew of Lydia, or when he knew it, for she was an audaciously complex woman who wove a long intricate history.

 

Lydia Mae Locke was among the youngest daughters of Civil War Veteran, Newton Bushnell Lock (they interchanged Lock and Locke), who had a farm in Adams County, west central Illinois, near the Mississippi River town of Quincy. She was likely born in or before 1884, being about six years younger than Orville, although age is just one area that she obscured. The family relocated during the hard times preceding the crash of 1892, to be near relatives in Hannibal, Missouri, where Mr. Lock worked as a day laborer. Lydia ran away from Hannibal and later lived with a married older sister in St. Louis²¹, Mrs. Jane Schmitt, events suggesting that this was a considerably traumatic time.

Lydia Mae seemed to go by her middle name during this period, and the varied mix of turn of the century St. Louis is when and where Mae cultivated operatic aspirations and dramatic flair, which she never limited to the stage. Continuing a feral streak, she met Albert W. Talbot during 1902, an exotic French-speaking black sheep in white suits, in a St. Louis “immoral house²²” when she was perhaps 18 and Albert was about 43. Albert became Mae’s first husband the following year in Denver, when she became his fourth wife²³. Albert had strayed a bit also, for he was the brother of Québécois Colonel Arthur Talbot, of the Canadian federal parliament²⁴, and they had a sister who was a nun. The Talbot couple moved to San Francisco and on to Reno, Nevada, Albert’s talents being gambling, horsemanship, and bookmaking, to the extent that they owned real estate in both cities²⁵. Between financial worth and dandy dress, he was known as Prince Albert. They owned a home and a bowling alley in Reno, and Mae sometimes performed vaudeville and opera at the Wigwam Theatre, under the name of Madame “Talbo” ²⁶.

Albert perhaps supported Mae’s operatic yearnings, as he seems to have been genuinely sympathetic toward her, so that Mae claimed to have studied opera in Milan, Italy. She stated that she had debuted in Carmen, going on to appear in Rigoletto, La Gioconda, Il Trovatore, and Aida, both in Milan and Venice²⁷, and at the time of marrying Orville, she stated that her first husband had lived with her in Italy²⁸. Returning home, she appeared in concerts in San Francisco and her husband’s homeland of Canada. It also seems that the couple was somewhat volatile, gradually escalating into verbal and physical abuse. By late 1909, having lived in Reno for three years, they filed for divorce and began negotiating division of property.

Mae had an apartment, where the couple reportedly fought one evening, and where both neighbors and police were familiar with similar events. Mae and Albert then met the following morning (October 28, 1909) at the office of her attorney, Judge W. D. Jones, to continue discussing property, of which Mae wanted 50% on the basis that she had helped Albert obtain all that he owned. With cool October weather in Reno, Mae had arrived wearing fur and a muff, and still had her hands in the muff as they talked. As voices and emotions escalated, Mae stood up over Albert, and when he stood to face her she pushed the muff into his chest and fired a shot from a small revolver²⁹. A second shot went into a doorframe as Albert and Attorney Jones struggled to restrain her. Mae then ran from the office, where Albert lay mortally wounded in the right lung. Mae rushed to her apartment, informing the landlady that she was leaving, and to tell friends that she would not be returning. She then retired to a lady friend’s apartment, where Sheriff Farrell found Mae on a couch, wearing a kimono³⁰, denying any knowledge of the shooting.

This was page-one news in Reno, and as Albert lingered for a week he maintained that, “She did not mean to shoot me. It was an accident. We’ve both been pretty hard on each other many times, we have both made mistakes, too.” He went on to say that should he die, it would merely be the culmination of a life wasted, and that his wife should be left alone³¹. Instead, she was tried for 2^nd degree murder, over loud prosecution protestations of more sinister intent. Mae was acquitted in December on self-defense, at least partially because of previous physical abuse and consequent fear for her wellbeing. A matter of later inconvenience for Mae was that details of her meeting and shooting Albert Talbot became public record during the trial, somewhat offset because all Reno sources referred to her as Mae Talbot.

Mae Talbot put Reno behind her to become operatic soprano, Lydia Locke. She could not have reached Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera before it folded in early 1910. One source suggests that she traveled to Chicago and on to Paris to study singing, presenting the possibility that she was in Paris with Orville prior to the London Opera³². Her Reno life became non-existent. Prince Albert was elevated to a deceased English military officer named Reginald, and later in America became Lord Reginald Talbot, until Lydia’s Reno affairs were uncovered in 1923. Whoever Lydia Mae was in 1913, she was Orville’s.

Lydia’s Midwest farm origins were similar to Orville’s, but she probably did not portray these, as that image did not suit the sophisticated persona that she had evolved. She must have told him that she was from somewhere, and one wedding clipping described Lydia’s mother as on her way to New York from her “country home” near St. Louis³³. It remains unclear how Lydia contained information of her past, especially throughout the wedding gathering, although it is possible that her family knew nothing at all of the Talbot marriage. At the least, however, Orville might have returned from Italy in 1913 with a cautious new view of his second wife. Clouds were building, divorce and marriage being among several fateful decisions Orville made during this period.

 

Home from Italy, the couple finally spent early September at Bradley Beach, near Asbury Park and Ocean Grove New Jersey, summering and practicing voice and opera roles for the coming New York winter season³⁴. Construction on the Lexington Opera House was lagging, so that the newlyweds were again touring the Midwest through late September and October 1913, managed by Harry Paris. Paris likely presented a convenience to Hammerstein, who was considerably burdened with deteriorating affairs in New York.

 

Beginning at Orville’s old Wysor Grand Theatre in Muncie³⁵ (appearing there with the new wife must have been strangely stressing), the group traveled through Indianapolis, Richmond, Anderson, and Terre Haute in Indiana, as well as Lima and Columbus Ohio³⁶. Harry Paris’s sixty-voice Ensemble Club choir embellished concerts in Muncie and Anderson. Their standard show, accompanied by Agnes Monroe, was expanded to include Lydia Locke solos and duets (still by her stage name), although she missed some shows because of illness. Generally excellent reviews were not surprising, and Lydia was well received even in Muncie. Her voice was described as most pleasing in middle and lower registers, her acting was splendid, and their duet from Madame Butterfly was superb³⁷. Although her voice was less robust than Orville’s, reviews credited her with impressing audiences by her grace and personal charm³⁸. A Richmond newspaper reported that, “Mr. and Mrs. Harrold are engaged to sing in the Hammerstein opera winter season…”, indicating that Lydia may have remained on Hammerstein’s roster³⁹. She gave a motivational talk to girls in Terre Haute, stressing the virtues of study and hard work to achieve success⁴⁰, and was typically described off-stage as delightful and proper. After completing the tour, Orville may have returned west to San Francisco, where he was reportedly scheduled to appear at the Mechanics Fair in November⁴¹.

In mid-November, Oscar Hammerstein announced that opera at his new Lexington Avenue Theatre would not be given in its native languages. He instead would present opera in English, opening January 15 with Romeo and Juliet, having Orville and Frances Siemon in the principal roles⁴². (apparently referring to Mabel Siemonn, who debuted with the Met later in 1914 under her maiden name, Mabel Garrison.) The new organization would present two operas each week, rather than one for the whole week, but the second opening opera was not announced. This plan was slipping away by the first week of January, 1914. Progress was seen to have ceased on the building, as Oscar announced that construction delays prevented opening until the fall. More seriously, an injunction brought by the Met prevented Hammerstein from presenting grand opera at all. He had soon paid off the chorus, placed several of the principal singers with other companies, and retained Orville, soprano Alice Gentle, and several other singers to present a traveling concert tour under the name of the Hammerstein Grand Opera Concert Company⁴³. In mid-January, Orville sang backup in the chorus for Lydia Locke, billed as leading soprano of Hammerstein’s London Opera, before a banquet of the Society of the Genesee at New York’s Biltmore Hotel⁴⁴. Orville was considering his options and looking at alternatives.

Hammerstein (and talent) had catapulted Orville to top level international grand opera after only a couple of seasons, where he hoped to remain. An important consideration was the exclusive nature of top tier opera, cost being a major factor. While one might attend a concert one week and theatre another, opera was both at the same time. The concert required a full orchestra, the theatre required a cast, scenery and costumes and their makers. Musical theatre required a supporting chorus. All required supporting directors, stage-hands, and management. They all had to be paid for rehearsals in addition to the night’s performance, and top tier performers commanded high salaries. Their theatre building had landlord costs, to be covered every day of the year. Opera patrons required deep pockets, and Hammerstein had found insufficient deep pockets in either New York or London to support two top tier opera companies.

Life after Hammerstein thus required careful planning. Top tier opera in New York was owned by the Met, where general manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza had Caruso as lead tenor, plus a stable of other excellent tenors. Opportunities at the Met were by invitation, and Gatti-Casazza was generally reputed to favor foreign artists. He was apparently not inclined toward Orville, in any event, who had little American reputation and who still had limited experience and repertoire. The best chances to remain in top tier opera probably resided in other major American cities. Orville had been very well received abroad, but WWI made 1914 an inopportune time for returning to Europe. It is not clear if Patti was still living in New York in early 1914; she returned to Muncie at some point, graduating from high school there in 1917. In any event, after a life of wandering, Orville (or Lydia) was unwilling to move from New York, so that Orville appeared in Romeo and Juliet with the Century Opera Company on January 27, 1914.

The Century Opera Company had been incorporated in May of 1913, at the behest of the City Club of New York⁴⁵. They had formed a Committee on Popular Opera to pursue a plan of presenting moderate quality opera at popular prices, with about half of performances being in English and half in their original languages. A stock company was formed, the primary backer being Otto H. Kahn, Board Chairman of the Met, who had been favorably impressed in London by Hammerstein and Orville Harrold. The aggressive plan was to present over thirty operas during a forty-week season, taking off the summer quarter. The City Club selected brothers Milton and Sargent Aborn to manage the business, who had operated for ten years their own opera enterprise built on similar objectives, but with a different and more modest business plan.

The Aborns were dedicated to popularizing grand opera, much like Hammerstein, but at a more common level that was priced for more general consumption. For a three-month spring season, their six traveling casts appeared in about ten cities (Boston, Providence, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Newark, Baltimore, Washington, Pittsburgh, and Chicago) that could support opera and maybe even had a permanent resident opera company. Each city was set up with a fixed chorus, orchestra, and artistic staff, which rented venues where the traveling casts and sets circulated through⁴⁶. The scale and efficiency of this system were economically self-sufficient. The timing appeared aimed at utilizing artists and staff available after the close of the winter opera season, when they would have welcomed the work, and many notable singers came up through the Aborn operas.

The Century Opera planned a permanent company in a renovated theatre on Central Park West, renamed the Century Theatre, as an alternative New York opera venue. (This had previously been the New Theatre, where the Met had staged operas competing with Hammerstein.)  Century Opera thus needed to establish credibility and support in the critical New York entertainment environment. From the outset, the Century made clear a plebian approach in which good quality opera would be presented, by economic necessity, without star quality performers⁴⁷. It would draw from the more general stock of operatic artists, Milton Aborn going to Europe during the summer of 1913 to recruit Americans who trained there and had found receptive audiences in the numerous smaller opera companies scattered around Europe⁴⁸. (American performers in Europe perhaps shared the cachet of foreign performers in America.) Orville’s limited American credentials made him a good match with Century’s charter and budget. Century performances had begun in September 1913, being through about half their season when Orville arrived in late January. To get there, Orville had to go to court.

Orville had obviously shared his intent with Hammerstein sometime previously, whereupon Oscar had filed for a court injunction on the basis of his exclusive contract with Orville⁴⁹. Justice Giegerich reserved decision in a hearing on the afternoon before Orville’s Century debut, during which Orville’s attorney argued that, as Hammerstein was legally prevented from presenting opera in major cities, Orville was prevented from practicing his art, at injury to his professional standing. The matter was settled on February 11, when Justice Giegerich ruled that Orville was not bound by the contract, because Hammerstein had not given written notice at the close of the year of his intent to renew the contract, as stipulated by the contract⁵⁰.

This move was perhaps more bold than Orville realized, but he seemed passionate in pursuing his art. A contrasting view is that the contract was a two-sided obligation that bound Hammerstein to provide Orville very lucrative employment. A more dispassionate and practical approach might have been to continue collecting on the contract while negotiating some sort of buyout from Hammerstein, who seemed equally passionate about pursing his dreams. It appears that Orville simply left his cards on the table and walked away, but the Century would seem to have proffered a reasonably attractive offer.

Having sung Romeo and Juliet with Hammerstein in London, Orville now played Romeo at the Century opposite Beatrice La Palme, a Canadian formerly of Covent Garden and the Montreal Opera. Orville sang several of his familiar roles with Century, plus learning Aida and Martha, before the company ended a shortened season in April. Besides Miss La Palme, he appeared regularly with Century’s principal soprano, Lois Ewell. Originally from Tennessee, Miss Ewell had grown up in Brooklyn, trained in New York, and then entered classical burlesque there (reportedly under Victor Herbert⁵¹). After some opera in Boston, she sang grand opera in Cleveland and then with the Aborns before going to Europe in 1910, where Milton Aborn signed her for the Century⁵² in 1913. The aggressive schedule of presenting seven or eight performances per week (both in English and original language), plus debuting frequent new operas, was wearing on the company and lowering presentation quality because of very limited rehearsal time. Lois Ewell seemed visibly tired and even robust Orville was wearing, not being fully himself during Martha⁵³, while young Beatrice La Palme permanently retired at the end of 1914, exhausted. Opera productions could run smoothly only after the repetition of many rehearsals and full presentations. After a successful first half of the season, such problems were eroding the Century’s reputation and attendance, running them into a deficit.

The Century Opera was an untried concept that had been at least partially successful. Opera at half-price was attracting first-time opera goers, not so much competing with the Met as grooming the Met’s future audiences. Indeed, both the Century and the Met had full houses on the same evening, early in the season. But, there were problems. The season was too long, and the quantity of different operas too great, to fully prepare quality presentations. Also, the less experienced opera audiences preferred traditional melodic scores. Some of these shortcomings could directly be improved by reducing scope and tailoring selected presentations.

With low budgets and wages, the chorus and orchestra were rife with inexperienced and less talented musicians, with limited opportunity to rehearse and learn frequent new scores. The Aborns began addressing these issues during the summer of 1914, starting with new directors. They hired concertmaster, Hugo Riesenfeld, previously concertmaster for both the Met and Manhattan operas⁵⁴. Italian born conductor, Agide Jacchia, was brought in from the Montreal Opera to lead the Orchestra⁵⁵. (He was conductor of the Boston Pops from 1917-1926.) Next was Josiah Zuro to lead the chorus, previously chorus master and sometimes conductor at Manhattan Opera⁵⁶. The new artistic director was Jacques Coini, former stage manager for Hammerstein’s Manhattan and London operas⁵⁷. These gentlemen were free to release and hire performers, and to work their organizations into improved condition. Orchestra wages were increased to the next higher union level to both attract better talent and to allow additional rehearsals.

Another weak area was that available English librettos, sometimes several of them for a given opera, were clumsy and of low appeal, so that the Aborns had new ones carefully translated. A possible fault here is that melodramatic opera lyrics may seem trite and silly in a literal translation into English from a romantic sounding foreign tongue. A translation had to be thoughtfully interpreted and phrased to produce a serious and believable text. Such were the pitfalls of attempting opera in English.

In a 1914 European foray, Milton Aborn contracted new American lead performers, having more experience and larger repertoires⁵⁸. He attempted, but failed, to acquire Felice Lyne in Paris, who had been studying and singing there regularly after Hammerstein’s London opera. One of Aborn’s top catches was Henry Weldon, Hammerstein’s American basso from the London opera. As the war was closing opportunities for Americans in Europe, the Aborns began an opera school at the Century, which could net some prime American talent, and supplement the lack of available training elsewhere⁵⁹. Finally, Century Theatre seating was expanded, and an expensive new electric stage-lighting system was installed, capable of dramatic effects.

The 1914 summer hiatus left Orville and Lydia free for other pursuits. This is about when Orville produced his first recordings. Free from Hammerstein, he made an Edison Blue Amberol cylinder recording of The Secret (#28191), one of his popular concert songs since 1910, along with The Sweetest Story Ever Told (#28169) and four other pieces. It is not clear that Lydia had many singing engagements, and she is mentioned in virtually no period reviews. However, during June she was engaged in a court suit against a New York banker named Julian W. Robbins. He owned the car that had caused the October 1912 automobile accident that had broken her leg and caused internal injuries (his chauffer had been driving the car). Lydia was suing for $25,000 in compensation for both pain and suffering, and her loss of income from professional singing⁶⁰. The suit was apparently settled out of court.

Also in June, Orville appeared in his usual role as the Duke in a summer opera presentation of Rigoletto in Far Rockaway. A visiting Italian opera company provided most of the cast, while the chorus and orchestra were drawn primarily from the Met⁶¹. The summer was otherwise quiet, but Lydia again made the news during the fall, being called to court for disorderly conduct. The Harrolds were moving from their Riverside Drive apartment to another on Central Park West, near the Century Theatre. Their old landlady, Mrs. Alice Miller, claimed eight day’s rent due for the interim from when they had agreed to rent the unit until they actually occupied it and signed the lease. Lydia claimed that Mrs. Miller called her out from a bath to collect the contested rent, and attacked her physically over the dispute, while Mrs. Miller claimed that Lydia was the attacker⁶². Both had filed court claims, but the judge managed to persuade both to drop charges. This made page-one news back in Indianapolis, with a zesty salacious aspect for the bathtub fight scene.

The remade Century Opera began its fall season on September 14^th, 1914, leading with ever-popular Romeo and Juliet, having principal roles filled by Lois Ewell and Orville Harrold. The performance was well reviewed as delivering on the Century’s promise of better opera, with some of the highest praise going to Henry Weldon⁶³. Their reorganized chorus was vastly improved, the orchestra performed beautifully under conductor Jacchia, and even lesser roles in the ensemble were very well received. Focusing on melodious opera, the Century presented Puccini’s Madam Butterfly a month later, with Helen Stanley as an excellent Madame Butterfly and Orville as Lieutenant Pinkerton, credited as on a par with any tenor short of Caruso⁶⁴. The show was again highly praised as being well worth the price and even superior to productions charging more, indicating that the Century was pleasing critics, who were closely watching these productions⁶⁵:

New York Times, October 14, 1914

Orville Harrold deserves warm praise, not so much for his singing of Pinkerton, as that might have been expected to be good, but for the fact that he was able to make this generally dreary figure seem human. Century audiences are coming to realize that this singer combines with the fine voice with which he is blessed an uncommon intelligence and taste.

Meanwhile, the Century had announced in early October that it would present six to eight weeks of opera in Chicago, beginning near the holidays⁶⁶. The European war prevented the Chicago Opera Company from having its regular foreign cast, after spending heavily on scenery, costumes, and a theatre lease. The Century Opera Company was to leave on 21 November for Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston. They presented Carmen at a well-attended Alvin Theatre in Pittsburgh during late November, with Bertha Shalek in the title role and Orville as Don Jose⁶⁷. The entire presentation was praised as well above previous Aborn productions to visit town, while Orville was cited as a remarkable tenor who was the notable feature of the evening.

The troupe soon opened in Chicago with Aida and then, on November 25, presented Madam Butterfly, with Lois Ewell the lead and Orville again as Pinkerton. Critics greatly enjoyed the singing and stage presence of Miss Ewell, who they found much improved over her appearance four years earlier with the Aborns. Orville was declared a brilliant success, amid recollections that he had made no great impression only a couple of years previously⁶⁸. The Century soon thereafter sang Carmen, with a different cast than in Pittsburgh, as they were circulating artists through some of the lead roles. During December, they staged the first full Chicago presentation of William Tell in a quarter century. Pointing out that finding a capable tenor was no little problem, critics described Orville to be a “light of stellar radiance”, showing great powers in a tour de force of voice and dramatic feeling⁶⁹. (They noted that he rested in preparation, as if for an athletic event.) The only missing ingredient was an audience.

Attendance was low, despite excellent reviews recommending that the Century Opera was too good to miss. Then, Century’s primary backer, Otto H. Kahn, resigned from its Board of Directors in late December⁷⁰. He expressed great pleasure in how the Century had managed improvements and presented meritorious performances, and that he expected to provide continued financial support. But, he felt that the organization needed broader direction, as he had become nearly sole guide of the enterprise. The Century ceased Chicago operations around New Year, having exhausted both its capital and guarantee fund⁷¹. While the Century Opera would struggle several additional months to survive, they would not succeed. For all that had been accomplished at the Century, a third opera company collapsed from under Orville, leaving him once again treading air.

Century directors and officers began working to shore up the company with $50,000 in contributions to a guarantee fund that would keep the business financially backed for three years, and with Otto Kahn pledging to match contributions. A second blow came when the Aborn brothers announced in early January 1915, that they were breaking with the company to organize their own new opera company⁷². They intended to merge lessons from the Century with their previous circulating opera scheme to yield a self-supporting business, for which they hoped to recruit many of the talented Century cast and management. Their conclusion was that, as Hammerstein had found, New York alone could not support the cost of a second permanent opera company, even of second tier quality. Their plan was to present about a fifteen week season in New York (perhaps Brooklyn), followed by one to four week engagements in such major cities as they had served with their previous enterprise. They were essentially competing with Century directors to snatch away the central core assembled there, planning also to retain an opera school that seemingly filled a need.

Hammerstein’s long-gone contract might now have looked attractive. Orville was likely invited to join the Aborn’s, but having found opera a field of quicksand, he chose a road to dependable employment. Ignoring his old defense that continued opera was necessary to protect his credentials, Orville returned to vaudeville, appearing January 11, 1915 before a rapturously appreciative audience at the Palace Theatre⁷³, the premier vaudeville venue. In doing so, Orville was also ignoring the findings of his old coach, Oscar Saenger, that vaudeville had damaged his voice. Orville had already ridden vaudeville to a notable career, so would not necessarily view it as a dead end. Indeed, future star operatic soprano, Rosa Ponselle, was in a vaudeville singing sister act at about that time (the Ponsello sisters from Meriden, Connecticut). Vaudeville offered opportunities that had a large reliable patronage.

Opening at the Palace on the same day as Orville was another Hoosier, Valeska Suratt, sensational Broadway musical and dance star known as the Empress of Fashion for her elaborate gowns. From his Harry Paris format, Orville began with Pagliacci’s romantic “La Donna a Mobile”, sung offstage, then surprised the audience by appearing as the clown, singing Canio’s sob song, and finally presented his standard concert ballads⁷⁴. This was all popular enough to run for a two weeks. New York critics welcomed Orville’s return to vaudeville, noting his range and versatility, his level or artistry, and that beyond singing songs, he acted them. The New York Morning Telegraph expressed pleasure, thanking Gus Edwards for “giving us Orville Harrold”, and Gus Edwards was interviewed regarding Harrold’s discovery back around 1908⁷⁵. The Palace Theatre had been built by Martin Beck, owner of the Orpheum Circuit of vaudeville theatres, and was run by the chain of Keith Albee Theatres (Benjamin. F. Keith and Edward F. Albee). These organizations operated vaudeville’s “Big Time” theatre chains, both having offices in the Palace Theatre. (Beck owned about 40% of Keith stock. In early 1928, Joe Kennedy (yes, those Kennedy’s) merged Keith’s and Beck’s organizations into Keith Albee Orpheum, which he combined with his movie interests and then sold to Radio Corporation of America (RCA) mid-year to create RKO, Radio Keith Orpheum, theatres and studios.) Doing more than just a few shows, Orville was being managed by Gus Edwards for “limited vaudeville engagements” in the New York area, Edwards stating that Orville would be staring in a comic opera being written for him⁷⁶. His departure from opera had brought Orville his own New York show, this engagement likely having been arranged by Gus Edwards.

Now over two years since leaving London, Orville and Lydia lived comfortably in a tenth floor apartment on Central Park West, where their maid walked Lydia’s dogs⁷⁷. Grand opera was demanding an unsettled lifestyle that they understandably were unwilling to pursue, and which could be seen, on the other hand, in the single-minded passion of Felice Lyne. She had returned from Paris during late 1912 to singing engagements in London, then on to America for concerts in Allentown and Kansas, before embarking on a 1913 world opera tour with an Irish promoter named Thomas Quinlan⁷⁸. After literally circling the globe, she arrived back in March, 1914 to sing full opera for the first time in America with the Boston Opera Company, and signed a contract with them for early 1915. She was then back in London and Paris for the summer of 1914, where Milton Aborn had found her while scouting for the Century opera. She remained in Paris until October, when growing WWI hostilities prompted her to join a group of Americans who chartered a boat to take them down the Seine to Havre⁷⁹.

Miss Lyne then came to America, where she joined Loudon Charlton for a 1914 fall tour of the United States, bringing her to her 1915 Boston engagement. She returned to Honolulu over the summer, where she had visited with the Quinlan tour, then joined the Boston Opera in the fall for an extended tour organized by Max Rabinoff, the promoter Hammerstein had warned away from opera during Orville’s visit⁸⁰. This wound throughout the United States, with occasional stops in Canada, to a conclusion in late spring of 1916. After summering with her parents in Allentown, Felice and her mother sailed for England, across a North Atlantic fraught with German submarines. She continued to sing in England and France, and throughout the Continent after the war. Her life in Paris was quieter during the 1920’s, but she never married, and after political upheaval in 1932 she returned home to Allentown, sick and dying while only in her mid-40’s⁸¹.

In contrast, Orville organized a more stable career during the spring of 1915, while Lydia began receiving several of her own opera notices in newspapers. Her photo appeared in the arts section of the New York Morning Telegraph On April 18, along with those of Melanie Kurt, Blanche Arral, and Arturo Toscanini (who had just conducted his last season at the Met), the group captioned as “Notables in the Music World⁸².” She was pictured the same day in the New York Times, along with Toscanini, with no unifying description or article, but with the caption, “Lydia Locke – Aborn Opera Company, Brooklyn⁸³.” The photos were all publicity shots provided to newspapers by promoters of upcoming events. In Lydia’s case the event was her long dreamed of American opera debut⁸⁴, appearing with the Aborn’s April 21^st Brooklyn presentation of Faust, with Richard Bonelli as Valentin and Lydia as Marguerite. Lydia had been studying since the previous fall with a New York singing coach named Frederick Haywood⁸⁵. This was a three-week production of the Aborn Grand Opera Company and Brooklyn Academy of Music⁸⁶, the latter of which had existed since the Civil War and remains today an active arts school. Lydia’s performance received generally favorable reviews, although they also noted that she lacked some range and power, and that her tall stature was unmatched with the girlish character⁸⁷. 

In May of 1915, the Century Opera filed for bankruptcy, with considerable sums owed to backers, vendors, and individuals. Of note, they owed approximately six thousand dollars each to Lois Ewell and Orville for contracted appearances not yet performed, clearly showing that headliners in even second tier opera were commanding salaries that would be well into today’s six figures.

Since Lydia’s Brooklyn debut, newspapers had suggested that she might become a war nurse, joining Mary Garden’s (Hammerstein’s discovery then singing in Chicago) hospital reportedly opening in Paris for war wounded. The initiative produced more publicity than nursing. Not yet having branded herself as a notable singer, a May 4, 1915 column heading in the New York Times read, “Opera Tenor’s Wife Accuses Chauffeur – Mrs. Orville Harrold will appear in court today against Moses Small.” Lydia had again been summoned on charges of disorderly conduct⁸⁸. Suffering from bronchitis, her doctor had prescribed some “powders”, to be delivered by currier, Moses Small. When he requested a 25¢ charge, Lydia, lacking a quarter, refused to pay and demanded the package. While she claimed that he then pulled her into the hall and struck her, he charged that she stepped forward wielding a high-heeled satin slipper and lacerated his face. Orville was gone at the time, singing in Chicago. The case was dismissed as an unverifiable “he said, she said” morass, but again suggests that Orville was living with a tempestuous temperament in Lydia. There was also, again, a risqué aspect to this drama, since Lydia had managed to get locked outside her door wearing only a brief gossamer negligee, while having attracted the attention of a large social event at Rabbi Levy’s across the hall⁸⁹. Lydia was seeming prone to occasional news-making emotional flare-ups.

Having now sung in American opera, Lydia was in Joplin, Missouri during mid-May, visiting family and performing a concert, after which she gave another “hard work” speech to local girls⁹⁰. It is not apparent that Orville was there, and by June he was appearing at the New Brighton Theatre, a popular vaudeville venue at Brighton Beach⁹¹, adjacent to Coney Island. On July 4, he sang the “Star Spangled Banner” for a benefit game between the Giant and Yankees at the Polo Grounds⁹². Orville was spending the summer of 1915 staying before the public, rehearsing his new production, and enjoying the Jersey shore.

Orville and Lydia sang in concert before a full house during their second annual August appearance at Ocean Grove, New Jersey⁹³, near where they summered at Bradley Beach. Ocean Grove was among the most successful of summer church camps that had blossomed after the Civil War. In this case, the camp had a large auditorium seating 6000, that had hosted numerous notables and performers, including Caruso. (This auditorium still survives, in relatively original condition.) In early September Orville and Lydia sang vaudeville together at the Palace Theatre, her first vaudeville appearance, in a concert that included Fannie Brice⁹⁴. The couple was well received and garnered numerous good reviews, as Orville headed into his main event.

New York’s largest theatre, the Hippodrome, had been built a decade earlier by the creators of Coney Island’s Luna Park, to present sight and sound spectaculars for audiences up to 5000, with casts of over 1000 and including live animals. There were circus rings, aquatic scenes, and a hydraulically raised “vanishing pool” in which actors exited the stage underwater. The massive building was a challenge to make profitable, and it had been operated since 1909 by the Shubert brothers, with mixed results. New management, having large money and large new ideas, arrived in 1915 with Charles Dillingham, who had been producing Broadway musicals by Victor Herbert and Irving Berlin at the Globe Theatre. Dillingham’s new Hippodrome was scrubbed clean, soon to present massive musical reviews comprising cast, chorus, scenes, a myriad of acts, and John Philip Sousa’s band as the house orchestra. Each show was to run for about an eight-month season, from fall through the next spring.

Dillingham’s opening 1915-1916 season presented Hip! Hip! Hooray!, a “rah rah America” musical review in three acts, with Orville Harrold its Hero and Belle Storey the Heroine. The three acts shifted from New York, to Panama, where America had just completed twenty years on the canal, to a winter wonderland in Switzerland. The show was written and directed by Robert H. Burnside, who had written and staged The Belle of London Town, the 1907 Shubert play that had folded on Orville and sent him traveling in vaudeville. Burnside had become Hippodrome stage director in 1908, where he was a successful (and durable) director, playwright, composer, and lyricist. John Raymond Hubble, the Hippodrome’s music director, wrote much of the show’s music.

While a central unifying character, Orville was among a cast of over 1200 singers, dancers, entertainers, and comedians. The show was generally a rousing good time that lived up to its name, a large colorful spectacle with dashes of circus and vaudeville, likely benefiting from rising pro-American enthusiasm following the Lusitania sinking. Sousa introduced his Hippodrome March. Amid rumors that the vanishing pool had been removed, it actually arose in the third act as a large genuine ice rink, hosting a skating ballet entitled Flirting at St. Moritz, with falling snow and ending in a ski jump scene. Leading the skaters was a seventeen-year-old German girl named simply Charlotte, the first woman skater to include an axel jump in her performance, who instantly popularized ice skating and soon appeared in the first skating movie.

Hip! Hip! Hooray! opened on September 30, 1915, with New York’s mayor in a special box, and played for 425 performances until June 3, 1916. The state governor attended on election day, the show continued breaking attendance records, and unlike vaudeville, attracted upper-crust society patrons. This likely constituted the highest paying period of Orville’s career. He reportedly received a four-digit weekly salary⁹⁵, which may have netted little more than one hundred dollars per performance, as the show can be seen to have run two performances per day. Orville also participated in Saturday night holiday concerts at the Hippodrome during December of 1915, with Sousa’s band and operatic singers such as Met baritone, David Bispham, and sopranos Emmy Distinn and Maggie Teyte. (Remembered primarily as a 1940’s interpreter of French art songs, Miss Teyte was known in English and American opera during the WWI era.)

The Hip Hip Hooray! cast gave a benefit concert during March of 1916. The Hippodrome team of Charles Dillingham and Robert Burnside had been producing an Irving Berlin musical and dance show at the Globe Theatre, starring a popular Paris dancer named Gaby Deslys, and her partner, Harry Pilcer. (Miss Deslys died prematurely in Paris during the early 1920’s, just before Josephine Baker entered the same scene.) As their show closed, during mid-March, the two casts combined for a performance to benefit the French Red Cross. But, Orville may have left the Hippodrome over the next few months. He was a powerful and energetic performer, so that hours of addressing such a large theatre without electric amplification took a toll on his voice. He became known as “the tenor with the throat of steel⁹⁶” and damaged the instrument that had made his career. Despite the lucrative income, Orville seems to have been gone from Hip Hip Hooray! by the end of May, 1916, although it is unclear on whose terms. Other opportunities were developing, and he may have endeavored to preserve his operatic vocal capability.

During Hip Hip Hooray! Lydia Locke sang at a series of benefits and smaller engagements in early 1916. She was among entertainers at a benefit in February for Belgian war refugees held at the New York Automobile Club⁹⁷, and a week later in a concert at the Hotel Astor Theatre Club. Lydia gave a brief series of high society benefit concerts in Philadelphia during late February. Publicity for these described a tall, slender, stately, bejeweled woman of attractive manner, who had delighted the Romanoffs at the Petrograd Imperial Opera⁹⁸. Both Lydia and Orville appeared at the Hotel Biltmore, along with Lillian Russell and others, at an April Shakespearian celebration held by the Professional Women’s League⁹⁹ for a series of Shakespeare tercentenary events. 

Lydia and Orville then gave several concerts in May of 1916, preceded by some unusual publicity. The concerts featured both solos and duets, with a number of Irish songs, and both accompaniment and solos by New York pianist, Emil Polak, who had studied with Dvorak. The first was on Sunday May 7 at the Strand Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island, with a second on May 14 at the Park Theatre in Bridgeport, Connecticut, apparently sponsored by the Wisner Piano Company¹⁰⁰. Advertising for both reiterated that Lydia had sung opera in Russia¹⁰¹. The Bridgeport Sunday Post ran an item in April stating that she had sung a season with the Russian Imperial Opera, and was then detained at the border when departing at the outbreak of the war. She was finally released after demonstrating that she was an opera diva¹⁰². An unidentified article of the same period from Effie Kiger’s scrapbook describes Orville visiting a friend’s winter home in northern Mexico for some hunting and fishing. This being the period when General Pershing was pursuing Poncho Villa, Orville was detained while leaving the country and held in a Mexican jail as a suspicious person, until being released after the music-loving commandante heard Orville singing opera in his cell.

While fascinating stories, it is difficult to believe that Orville and Lydia had both sung their way out of captivity, in nearly identical incidents on separate continents. In Lydia’s case, circumstances place the event in 1914, when she was already married to Orville. He was then singing and traveling with the Century Opera, but Lydia made several court appearances during this period, the couple summered in New Jersey, and Lydia reportedly began studying with Frederick Haywood during the fall. Overall, it is not clear just when her Russian season fits into the timeline of Lydia’s life. If a fabrication, the claim would seem audacious, but not totally out of character, while Orville’s similar publicity contained blatant blarney. Promoting the May concerts, Orville was described as Irish born but American raised, and then American born of Irish origin¹⁰³, neither of which is remotely true, but both of which might have helped sell Irish concert music.

The May concerts were perhaps the last time that Orville and Lydia appeared together, either on or off the stage. Their public high point was the July 1916 release by Columbia Records of “Orville Harrold, the operatic tenor, in exquisite duets with Lydia Locke, which make an event of this announcement of the New Records for July¹⁰⁴”. It appears that Orville had begun recording with Columbia at about the same time (1914) that he made cylinder recordings with Edison. Awake Dearest One and Sunshine of Your Smile, the two quite pleasing recordings with Lydia, were intricately intertwined duets of interesting character. However, Lydia’s volatile temperament, which possibly surfaced during their honeymoon and had since earned her several court appearances for disorderly conduct, was perhaps wearing thin on Orville. By the time that the advertisement for Columbia’s new record catalogue appeared in local newspapers around the country, Orville had escaped from New York, and from Lydia, by reentered opera in Chicago.

Orville had been bypassing summer opera as an option for remaining in the top tier opera network. Being a winter sport, top opera performers, orchestras, and sets scattered to various summer venues, some outdoors. The Met performed for many summers in Atlanta. Orville was off to a Chicago summer venue that had been spawned by a trolley line. Back when he was meeting Madame Schumann-Heink in 1904, Chicago’s A. C. Frost Company, speculators in land, railroads, and mining, were investors in developing a Waukegan electric trolley line into the Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railroad. The electric interurban line ran from Evanston up through the affluent north shore towns to Milwaukee. As an inducement for summer travelers, the Frost company built Ravinia Park in 1904, named for the many lakeshore ravines, as a recreational and amusement destination in the comfortable Highland Park district. Included were an electric fountain, a casino and dancehall building, and a wooden band shell offering evening concerts. The New York Philharmonic Orchestra played summers there, early on, but both the railroad and park sputtered into receivership in 1910. The railroad ultimately emerged as part of Samuel Insull’s growing empire of Chicago utilities and railroads.

Well-to-do north shore residents felt that the popular diversions and music had been of sufficient quality that they incorporated The Ravinia Company, led by philanthropist Louis Eckstein, who served as impresario and personally subsidized the organization for twenty years. Reopening in 1911, Ravinia Park developed as a summer venue for classical music, adding opera in 1912. Chicago already supported excellent winter opera, and its north shore communities abounded with the fertilizer of grand opera, money. By the end of WWI Ravinia had entered its golden age as an American capital for top quality summer opera, while it continues today to host the oldest summer music festival in North America. Operas were typically abbreviated, to end before the last trolley departed, and were often at least partially in English.

Orville added a high tenor dimension to Ravinia, although his voice suffered somewhat from Hip Hip Hooray! and his high notes sparkled less brightly. With Lucia, on July 1, 1916, Ravinia introduced Orville among top tier opera performers, at a venue that could connect his past to his future. There were Cordelia Latham, Morton Adkins, and basso Louis D’Angelo from his old Century Opera, the latter of whom was eventually at the Met, and conductor Ernst Knoch, who had been imported to guest conduct at the Century during its improved second season. They were likely the means by which Orville obtained a Ravinia position. There were such Met performers as baritone Millo Picco, Henri Scott, and Octave Dua who could reconnect Orville to top New York opera. More importantly, primary Ravinia conductor, Richard Hageman, was a Met conductor from 1914 to 1932. (Hageman was a child prodigy pianist from the Netherlands, who later had a fascinating Hollywood career.) Orville’s repertoire fit the 1916 Ravinia season, as he appeared as Edgardo in Lucia, the Duke in Rigoletto, Lionel in Martha, and Hoffman in Tales of Hoffman. (He had sung Martha at the Century, and is believed to have had performed Hoffman in London.) Orville also sang Thaddeus in The Bohemian Girl, and Des Grieux in the opera comique Manon, perhaps his first appearance in these roles¹⁰⁵. Ravinia kept Orville around Chicago into September of 1916.

Lydia performed on a double bill in her hometown St. Louis Coliseum¹⁰⁶ during October of 1916, but little else made public notice. The Aborn’s had planned to present opera at the Park Theatre in late 1916 and/or early 1917, but it is not clear that anything operatic occurred, for them or for Lydia. Instead, as soon as the Ravinia season ended, Orville was back out of New York and through his contract with B. F. Keith was on the road with a vaudeville tour of Orpheum Theatres in the United States and Canada. (This is the Orpheum Theatre vaudeville syndicate that became part of RKO: Radio Keith Orpheum.) Starting mid-September in New Orleans, Orville had a series of one-week engagements that went well and drew numerous curtain calls. These wound through Iowa and the plains states through the fall, and to Winnipeg during December and up to the holidays. He was back traveling with the new year through Oakland and the west, which left little down time and kept Orville working through the spring of 1917.

Whatever the exact route of his tour, Orville was likely back in Indiana during June, for Patti’s graduation from Muncie Central High School. Related to her singing and New York sojourn, her picture was alone on a separate yearbook page, apart from other students, with the caption “Wild bird whose warble is liquid sweet.” It perhaps matched an independent temperament. While her 1913 period of living in New York with Orville and Lydia had not worked out, Patti had wanted to return to New York ever thereafter, and only remained in high school beyond the second year because her father, who never graduated, insisted that she stay^106.5.

Orville was spending little time in New York, gradually leaving Lydia and reentering opera by stages, and had wrapped up his situation by summer. He opened again at Ravinia in Lucia on July 1, 1917, back among performers from the Met and elsewhere. Among new faces was Met conductor, Genarro Papi, who joined Met partner, Richard Hageman. Papi had been assistant to Toscanini, becoming head Met conductor at the beginning of the 1916 season. Orville again sang from his repertoire, this year adding Faust, La Traviata, and Romeo & Juliet, all of which he had performed in London. Casts included Florence Macbeth, an American who had sung occasionally at the Century Opera and previously as principal coloratura soprano at the Chicago Opera. During August, Orville was visited at Ravinia by his children, of which Patti was eighteen, and Paul, the youngest, was fourteen. They had likely visited the previous summer, but this occasion was captured in photographs, in which the children appear to be accompanied by a woman who is probably the sister of their mother’s (Effie) second husband, Dermont Neighbors. Meanwhile, Orville was mingling with the right opera crowd, but mingling was not opening the gate to the winter opera season. Orville had had little standing in American opera when his voice had been at its best. The frustrating irony, of his own making, was that his voice had fallen off its peak just as he was sidling into the top opera crowd. By one report, Orville was overweight, drinking more than usual, suffering voice damage, and generally wallowing at a low point¹⁰⁷.

By another report, Lydia had met a music-loving millionaire on a train¹⁰⁸, and Lydia could be beguiling. But Lydia was not alone in finding new direction in a chance encounter. It became public on July 7, 1917, just after he had left for Ravinia, that Orville was suing Lydia for divorce, and that papers were delivered to the attorney for co-respondent and tire industrialist, Arthur H. Marks¹⁰⁹. Lydia began a counter-suit, with named co-respondents, but then settled into the task of ending their second marriage. Beating an old drum, the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Daily News published a bitter piece entitled RETRIBUTION, noting that Orville’s second marriage was ending unhappily, and wishing him nothing better for the future¹¹⁰. Orville’s divorce from Lydia was finalized just prior to the end of the Ravinia summer season, on August 20, 1917, noting that they had been living apart for some time. Both had remarried by year-end.

Aside from perhaps shooting at Orville, Lydia had a demonstrated volatile streak. Their careers were running thin, likely raising tensions, and Lydia was not seemingly one to suffer silently or suppress frustrations. Part of Orville’s weariness may well have been from domestic emotional battery. Although there is little direct information of such, subsequent events suggest that Orville had been on quite a roller coaster.

Lydia married Arthur Hudson Marks on December 22, 1917, holding a reception at the Ritz-Carlton. Marks had amassed a considerable fortune as vice president and general manager of the Goodrich Rubber Company. With WWI, he had volunteered for the war effort, taking the Naval Reserve rank of Lieutenant Commander to manage wartime shipbuilding. Marks had just divorced, and had a son away at school. Having nurtured connections in the opera community, the bride was given away by Andrea de Segurola, basso at the Metropolitan Opera and descendant of an aristocratic Spanish family, while a countess Furulli was matron of honor¹¹¹. The couple occupied a new twenty six-room country estate on 1000 acres in Yorktown Heights, named Locke Ledge, which was noted in period publications for its architecture and landscaping. Marks reentered industry at war’s end by purchasing the foundering Skinner Organ Company of Boston, maker of large church and civic organs, so that a chapel having a massive pipe organ was among the features at Locke Ledge. (Skinner merged with Aeolian Organ Company in 1932, Aeolian-Skinner continuing until 1978.) Locke Ledge allegedly hosted Caruso, four American presidents, and other notables¹¹² (not verified). Although Lydia’s operatic career was waning, there was consolation in her new circumstances.

Outward tranquility lasted some years at Locke Ledge. In 1922 the Marks adopted a one-year-old boy named Paul Carewe Haynor, whose float had won first prize in an Asbury Park, NJ baby parade, and whose father had died during the war¹¹³. Then, divorce came in September of 1923. Mister Marks reportedly pressured Lydia into divorce by threatening to expose Prince Albert’s Reno death of 1909, for Marks had hired detectives to research Lydia’s past¹¹⁴. Such details presumably would have upset her social status, being as her first husband had been billed lately as the deceased Lord Reginald Talbot, making Lydia the former Lady Talbot, somewhat inconsistent with early events in St. Louis and Reno. Under the divorce terms, Lydia received $300,000 outright (multiply by 30 for today’s dollars), Locke Ledge (valued at a million dollars), property in the city worth $30,000, a summer estate at Peach’s Point, Marblehead, Massachusetts, and the adopted son. Marks also committed to pay an additional $100,000 after five years, if during that time Lydis did not pester him or cause either his or her names to appear unfavorably in newspapers. As in Orville’s case, there are few direct details of what triggered such protective reactions, but one surmises that life with Lydia was trying. Regarding their train ride introduction, Mr. Marks lamented that he should sue the rail line for allowing such a thing to happen.

Now comfortable toying with large sums, Lydia forfeited the $100,000 bonus in little more than a year. Having been gone most of that time, she reappeared in New York during the fall of 1924 with an infant son, claimed to be a Marks heir by blood¹¹⁵. In a November court hearing, Mr. Marks’ detectives divulged that the infant had actually been borrowed from a Kansas City orphanage, as a false prelude to adoption, and provided with a falsified birth certificate in St. Louis, through a manipulation of Lydia’s older sister there and her doctor¹¹⁶. Judge Edward J. Gavegan ordered the infant returned to Kansas City, Lydia never really provided an explanation for the deceit, and Arthur Marks (now more concerned than ever) offered a $50,000 appeasement for Lydia’s good behavior during the remainder of the five years. The baby borrowing incident was sufficiently curious that the syndicated press circulated reports of it, which still referred to Lydia as Lady Talbot, widow of Lord Reginald Talbot.

Lydia remarried immediately after the baby caper to her secretary, Mr. Harry Dornblaser, who was about ten years younger, and was adept at investing her financial assets. Harry returned suddenly to America during their Paris honeymoon, and the couple never again lived together. Lydia, meanwhile, read a chance notice in Paris that Arthur Marks had remarried. While their divorce prevented neither party from future relationships, the bride turned out to be a Margaret Hoover, Lydia’s best friend and advisor during the difficult Marks divorce. Lydia quickly returned to New York, and the new Marks couple soon received an anonymous letter, in handwriting that both believed they recognized, graphically accusing the new Mrs. Marks of the most vile deeds. The latest Mrs. Marks retorted with a $250,000 libel suit, during which the Marks detectives showed that one of Lydia’s sisters, Mrs. Mary Frances Adams of Joplin, Missouri, had given a letter and a tip to a Pullman porter to mail her letter from Bellefontaine, Ohio, the same town postmarked on the Marks poison-pen letter¹¹⁷. A Federal Grand Jury indicted Lydia in September of 1925, for using the mail to slander Mrs. Marks, although the case never completed trial. Harry Dornblaser divorced Lydia shortly thereafter, and in October of 1926 his body was found in an abandon log cabin in fashionable Shaker Heights, near Cleveland, having committed suicide with a revolver¹¹⁸.

This all slowed the pace of Mr. Marks protracted difficulties, and Lydia married Carlo Marinovic in 1927, a shipping magnate from one of the Balkan states, who was reportedly a count in his homeland before becoming a naturalized American. They were divorced in 1932, after she found him in bed with one of her best friends¹¹⁹. She continued filing suits against the Marks-Hoover couple, the last being in 1939 over Mark’s grave. Lydia claimed to be the rightful inheritor of his considerable estate, despite intervening spouses for both, on the basis that her divorce from Marks was invalid because it had been coerced under threat of duress¹²⁰. Lydia accumulated two additional husbands over the decades, and occupied Locke Ledge for fifty years. She operated the estate as an inn during mid-century, accompanied by her last husband, Irwin Rose. Known as a local Yorktown Heights character, she was noted for being chauffeured about, clad in full-length fur and little else, one such excursion being to attend town meeting. She sold Locke Ledge in 1965, which burned the following year, an event still lamented by local preservationists. (Much of the acreage became a local park.) Lydia died in 1966.

During her 1923 Marks divorce, Lydia caught the attention of American Weekly, a syndicated Sunday newspaper supplement that appreciated her entertainment value and kept a running file of her ongoing life. (Given their detailed information, they may have been fed information by Arthur Marks.) The magazine published jocular full-page spreads on various fascinating subjects, generally fact based and in something of a believe-it-or-not style. Besides the Marks divorce profile, American Weekly published four other Lydia updates, the last being for her 1939 posthumous suit for the Marks inheritance. A related piece of theirs regarded the perils of being, or being married to, an operatic tenor. Tenors were preyed upon, especially by operatic sopranos, but by all manner of coeds and women generally, such that it was difficult for tenors to keep their lives, and marriages, in order¹²¹. Various examples were presented, Orville offering little to disprove their case. Somewhat similarly, the autobiography of Frances Alda, Met soprano and wife of Met director Giulio Gatti-Casazza, was entitled Men, Women, and Tenors, (“My biggest mistake was marrying Gatti-Casazza, my second biggest mistake was divorcing him.”). The arts abound with passionate and mercurial personalities.

One might guess that Orville was emotionally fatigued, if not depleted, as he parted with Lydia in mid-1917. Added to his ailing voice and career, he was certainly in need of a lift.

Elsewhere, it is not clear that the Aborns ever managed their reentry into opera, but Sargent Aborn later gained control of Witmark & Sons Music Company, which owned rights and material for a large library of songs, musicals, and plays. This was merged with the Tam collection of similar material to create the largest existing library of printed and manuscript music. Sargent’s son, Louis, succeeded him as president of the firm in the mid-twentieth century, as the company expanded its list of rights to popular American musical stage plays, making them available to schools, community theatres, and professional production companies. This system of artist’s rights and distribution derives from the copyright laws and ASCAP protections pioneered by Victor Herbert just prior to his creation of Orville’s Naughty Marietta. Louis Aborn died in 2005, and Tam-Witmark Company still operates under the next Aborn generation.

The mid-teen years (1913-1917) had proven tumultuous for Orville. Admittedly, he had worked hard for his breakthrough, but the rapid rise that followed and the tremendous height achieved in London left considerable room for letdown. Hip Hip Hooray! perhaps restored some feeling of New York acceptance, but at a cost. Topping it all, his second marriage had been a lightning strike of ill luck that was as dramatic as his striking gold with Hammerstein. Marriage and opera seemed to be fickle worlds, the latter certainly helping to undermine the former.

The Harry Paris tours displayed much of the basic Orville. He genuinely enjoyed touring, singing, and audiences, and this arrangement had also made it possible to stay near his parents and family. It was noted during the tours that Orville was a plain Indiana soul lacking the attitude and affectations of big name entertainers. Even in the debacle of his second marriage, he enjoyed a period of singing and appearing on-stage with his wife, which seemed to have been the companionship he was seeking. Personal experiences of his trek to success had been solitary ones, as were his subsequent triumphs. Although family and stability waited patiently in Muncie, Orville was alone during his times of both anxiety and exhilaration. Effie and the family could accept his life, but could not share it or know and understand it from the inside. (likewise of Orville knowing his family’s life in Muncie) On one hand, Orville had been manipulated in his second marriage by an adroit deceiver. On the other, he had succumbed to one of his most unflattering episodes. It is certainly understandable that he sought a companion sharing his life’s passions, but it is unfortunate that his decision was so crushing to the wife who had given him the freedom and support to succeed.

Orville’s first wife, Effie, subsequently had considerable Muncie support from her own family, the Kiger’s. She moved in with one sister, Emma, but also had another local sister and a brother. (The brother, Tom, supported a family in simple and happy surroundings, while virtually never having a real job.) Following the divorce, Effie became involved with Dermont Neighbors, who ran a Muncie typewriter store, and their mutual photo album dates back to mid-1912, about a half-year before the divorce. Understandably, Orville was unpopular with the Kiger’s after the divorce, although Emma, who knew him best and saw him interact with his children, continued to find him a pleasant likable person. Especially after his devastating second marriage, Orville was considerably more sympathetic to Effie’s sorrows, and family lore holds that he tried repeatedly during home visits to regain at least some relationship with her, but never could.

Orville was forty years old in mid-1917, and it had been eight years since Hammerstein had discovered him in vaudeville at the Victoria Theatre. Orville had really experienced only about two or three full seasons of grand opera, much of the most important of it abroad, and now his voice was damaged. However, his voice and talent remained intact, and they had proven to be exceptional. Among his talents were keen learning ability, unusually clear linguistics on stage, and an understanding intellect for rendering his characters as sincere and believable. To an extent, he imbued his characters with some of the adventure of his own life and travels. He had considerable musical and stage experience beyond opera, for which he was perhaps more capable than many opera performers of creating an easygoing theatrical stage presence. Underneath it all, Orville seemed fundamentally a warm and playful person and an entertainer at heart, on and off the stage, who offered all he could to his audience and enjoyed their appreciation.

1. Seeks To Enjoin Tenor, New York Times, January 28, 1914

2. Harrold Sings From Box, New York Times, January 9, 1913

3. Harrold Sings In Stage Box, un-attributed news clipping in Patti Harrold’s scrapbook, clearly from January 9. 1913

4. The February, 1913 Kansas tour is detailed in various un-attributed news clippings in Patti Harrold’s scrapbook.

5. The Harrold Concert, by Otto M. Tiede, un-attributed Kansas City news clipping in Patti Harrold’s scrapbook, plus other Kansas City news clippings

5.5. Pagliacci and Mother McCree, Bob Barnet, The Muncie Star, February 2, 1975, describing the life of Orville Harrold

6. Orville Harrold Wins Audience, The Indianapolis Star, February 14, 1913. Also, Orville Harrold Was Given Great Reception Last Night, Esther Griffin White, un-attributed Richmond (IN) Daily Palladium & Sun Telegram, from Patti Harrold’s scrapbook

7. Orville Harrold Divorced, New York Times, February 18, 1913

8. Harrold Weds Again, New York Times, February 21, 1913

9. Letter from William T. Martin, with wedding announcement for Orville and Lydia Locke, taken from Musical America, March 01, 1913, page 21

9.5. Orville Harrold, Four Days Divorced, Weds Singer After Opera Romance, New York Herald, February 21, 1913, from scrapbook of Patti Harrold

10. Wouldn’t Mar Honeymoon, New York Times, June 7, 1914

11. Diva Inured In Wrecked Auto, New York Journal, November 1, 1912, and St. Louis Post Dispatch, February 21, 1913, both provided by Nancy A. Locke

12. Orville Harrold, Four Days Divorced, Weds Singer After Opera Romance, New York Herald, February 21 1913, from scrapbook of Patti Harrold

13. How He “Outgrew” His Wife, Salt Lake Tribune Sunday Morning, March 16, 1913

14. Success For Harrold, The Hutchinson News, February 16, 1913

15. Harrold And Ganz Captivate Portland People, Portland Daily Express, April 10, 1913, news clipping from Patti Harrold’s scrapbook

16. Wagner Festival Is Near At Hand, The Indianapolis Star, May 18, 1913, pg. 14

17. Indiana Tenor Here For Concert; His Bride, Indianapolis Sunday Star, June 1, 1913, pg. 7

18. Harrold Gains Fame as American Singer, un-attributed news clipping from the scrapbook of Effie Kiger Harrold

19. Scenes And Stars Coming To Terre Haute, Terre Haute Sunday Star, September 21, 1913, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

20. From personal correspondence with Orville Harrold’s granddaughter

21. From personal correspondence with William T. Martin

22 Testimony of George Omer, Reno Evening Gazette, November 9, 1909, pg. 2

23. Brother Says No To Cremation, Reno Evening Gazette, November 15, 1909, pg. 8

24. Partner Testifies, Nevada State Journal, November 10, 1909, pg. 3

25. Al Talbot Shot By Wife, Nevada State Journal, Friday October 29, 1909, pgs. 1 & 2

26. From personal correspondence with William T. Martin

27. Singer Shoots Husband, New York Times, October 29, 1909

28. Orville Harrold, Four Days Divorced, Weds Singer After Opera Romance, New York Herald, February 21, 1913, from scrapbook of Patti Harrold

29. Grants Bail To Mrs. Talbot, Nevada State Journal, Thursday December 2, 1909, pg. 2

30. Singer Shoots Husband, New York Times, October 29, 1909

31. Al Talbot Shot Down By Wife, Nevada State Journal, Friday October 29, 1909, pg. 2

32. Like A “Vamp” In The Movies, Syndicated by American Weekly Inc. 1923, from San Antonio Light, November 8, 1925

33. Orville Harrold, four Days Divorced, Weds Singer After Opera Romance, New York Herald, February 21, 1913, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

34. Orville Harrold And Wife Appear Here In Concert, The Indianapolis Star, September 14, 1923, pg. 15

35. Fine Program Is Announced For Harrold Recital, Muncie Sunday Star, September 16, 1913, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

36. newspaper clippings from various towns an dates, from September 16 through October 6, 1913, data provided by Nancy A. Locke. Additional numerous clippings from Effie Harrold’s and Patti Harrold’s scrapbooks.

37. Harrold And Wife Are Heard In Duet Work, September 24, 1913, un-attributed Muncie news clipping in Patti Harrold’s scrapbook

38. Harrold’s Voice Pleases Hearers, un-attributed news clipping in Patti Harrold’s scrapbook

39. Richmond Palladium, no date, September, 1913, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

40. Singer Gives Advice On Work Before Girls, Terre Haute Star, October 6. 1913, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

41. Tenor Will Sing – Will Aid Fair, Oakland Tribune, September 3, 1913, pg. 14

42. Two Operas A Week At Hammerstein’s, New York Times, November 14, 1913

43. Hammerstein Gives Up His Opera Plans, New York Times, January 6, 1914

44. Artists To Sing At Genesee Dinner, New York Times, January 14, 1914

45. Aborn Brothers For Century Opera, New York Times, May 11, 1913

46. ibid.

47. The Century Opera Plans, New York Times, July 6, 1913

48. ibid.

49. Seeks To Enjoin Tenor, New York Times, January 28, 1914

50. Hammerstein Loses Again, New York Times, February 11, 1914

51. Century Gets Miss Ewell, New York Times, June 23, 1913

52. ibid.

53. “Martha” Sung At Century, New York Times, March 25, 1914

54. Riesenfeld Joins Century Opera, New York Times, June 13, 1914

55. Century Keeps Its Better Opera Vow, New York Times, September 15, 1914

56. Aborns engage Josiah Zuro, New York Times, June 1, 1914

57. Century Opera Opening, New York Times, September 6, 1914

58. Wagner Conductor For Century Opera, New York Times, July 30, 1914

59. New York To Have Opera School, New York Times, August 23, 1914

60. Wouldn’t Mar Honeymoon, New York Times, June 7, 1914

61. Operas For Far Rockaway Church, New York Times, June 28, 1914

62. Mrs. Orville Harrold Plays Leading Role in Bathtub Drama, The Indianapolis Star, September 25, 1914, pg. 1

63. Century Keeps Its Better Opera Vow, New York Times, September 15, 1914

64. Butterfly At Century Opera, un-attributed news clipping in Patti Harrold’s scrapbook, under the initials H.E.K., this appears to be a review in the October 14, New York Tribune by Henry Krehbiel

65. Century Pleases in MME. Butterfly, New York Times, October 14, 1914

66. Chicago Century Opera, New York Times, October 1, 1914

67. Alvin-“Carmen”, un-attributed news clipping from Pittsburgh Dispatch, in Patti Harrold’s scrapbook

68. Century Singers In Fine Performance Of Puccini’s “Butterfly”, Edward C. Moore, Chicago Journal, November 25, 1914, from Patti Harrold’s scrapbook

69. Orville Harrold Scores In Sumptuous Revival Of Rossini’s ‘William Tell”, unattributed Chicago news clipping in Patti Harrold’s scrapbook

70. Otto H. Kahn Quits Century Opera Co., New York Times, December 21, 1914

71. Aborns To Break With Century Opera, New York Times, January 11, 1915

72. ibid.

73. Harrold In Vaudeville, New York Times, January 12, 1915

74. Amusements Of The Week, The Argonaut, pg. 58, un-attributed New York news article from Patti Harrold’s scrapbook, and Harrold And Suratt Win Success, January 12, 1915, un-attributed New York news article from Patti Harrold’s scrapbook,

75. Our Own Orville Harrold, by Leonard A. Sower reporting on the New York Morning Telegraph’s comments, un-attributed Muncie news article from Patti Harrold’s scrapbook, and How Orville Harrold Was “Discovered”, Gus Edwards description of finding Orville Harrold, un-attributed New York news article from Patti Harrold’s scrapbook

76. ibid.

77. Admits Hitting Chauffeur, New York Times, May 5, 1915

78. Felice Lyne Sings Gilda, New York Times, March 21, 1914

79. Miss Felice Lyne Returns, New York Times, October 19, 1914

80. Felice Lyne, Charles A. Hooey, www.musicweb-international.com/hooey/lyne-bio.htm

81. ibid.

82. Notables In The Music World, New York Morning Telegraph, April 18, 1915, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

83. Lydia Locke Aborn Opera Company, New York Times, April 18, 1915

84. MME. Locke Makes Debut In “Faust”, New York Herald, April 20, 1915, and others, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

85. Lydia Locke Charms Brooklyn As “Marguerite”, Musical America, May 1, 1915, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

86. Richard Bonelli.- Appearances, Charles A. Hooey, www.musicweb-international.com/hooey/bonelli-roles.htm

87. ibid. plus Brooklyn Citizen, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 21, 1915. Musical Currier, April 28, 1915, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

88. Opera Tenor’s Wife Accuses Chauffeur, New York Times, May 4, 1915

89. Locked Out In Nightie, The Washington Post, May 5, 1915, pg. 4

90. Joplin Crowds Marvel At Voice Of Lydia Locke, Joplin Herald, May 17, 1915, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

91. Orville Harrold, Great American Tenor, To Sing At Big Charity Benefit, identical articles appeared in both the New York American and the Evening Journal, which jointly sponsored the event, ca. June 30, 1915, from Patti Harrold’s scrapbook

92. ibid.

93. unidentified clip, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

94. At The Palace, New York Times, September 7, 1914

95. Orville Harrold Tenor, advertising brochure for Orville Harrold, Walter Anderson Agency, New York, ca. 1918

96. Orville Harrold Obit, New York Herald Tribune, October, 24, 1933

97. Aid For Belgian Refugees, New York Times, February 16, 1916

98. Lydia Locke Star At St. Rita Concert, Philadelphia Press, February 15, 1916, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and Philadelphia Enquirer, February 17, 1916, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

99. Stage Shakespeare All Over The City, New York Times, April 25, 1916

100. Unidentified newspaper, from the scrapbook of Effie Kiger Harrold

101. Operatic Concert With Lydia Locke, Philadelphia Enquirer, February 17, 1916, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

102. Bridgeport Sunday Post, April 7, 1916, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

103. Irish birth was claimed in a Prividence (RI) Tribune news clipping, April 30, 1916, from Patti Harrold’s scrapbook, while Irish heritage was claimed in an unattributed Bridgeport, Connecticut news clipping from Effie Kiger’s scrapbook

104. Columbia July Records, New Castle (Indiana) News, June 21, 1916, pg. 5. This advertisement appeared in numerous American newspapers.

105. High Points In the Career of Orville Harrold, Charles A. Hooey, www.musicweb-international.com/hooey/harrold-chron.htm

106. Unidentified news clipping, October 3, 1916, data provided by Nancy A. Locke

106.5 Pretty Patti Harrold of Irene Fame (Boston Sunday Globe, January 1, 1922) pg 34

107. The Comeback of Don Jose, article in The World Magazine, March 21, 1920, pg. 12

108. Wants To Be The Widow, The American Weekly, published in the San Antonio Light, September 17, 1939

109. Harrold Seeks Divorce, New York Times, July 8, 1917

110. Retribution, The Fort Wayne Daily News, July 14, 1917

111. Bride Of Lieut, Commander Marks, New York Times, December 23, 1917

112. article, LoHud.com, The Journal News, Lower Hudson area, NY, May 4, 2010

113. May Be Heir To Millions, Oakland Tribune Daily Magazine, October 11, 1922

114. Wants To Be The Widow

115. The Former Lady Talbot Confesses Baby Plot, The Washington Post, Tuesday, November 11, 1924

116. Wants To Be The Widow

117. ibid.

118. Divorced Husband Of Opera Singer Is Believed Suicide, The Charleston Daily Mail, October 17, 1926, pg. 1

119. Lydia Locke’s Slippery Steps Of Matrimony, The American Weekly, published in the San Antonio Light, May 29, 1938

120. Wants To Be The Widow

121. Emotional Worries Over Tenor Husband, The American Weekly, published in the San Antonio Light, February 8, 1925

 

 

[Preface] [Orville's Worlds] [Family] [Young Orville ] [To New York] [To London, and back] [The Second Marriage, 1913 – 1917] [The Third Marriage, Rehabilitation] [The Met Years, Two careers 1920-1924] [Photogallery]